Printing came before writing?
This personal ramble led to a broader ramble.

When we think about the history of symbolic representation we normally focus on painting and writing. Using pigments to leave a trace on a hard surface.

What if we think of engraving first? Scratching, scraping, indenting. I'm going to run wild in TEDX mode here.........

Good old Guk is trying to leave a message showing Ik where the big meat is, so that Ik can help Guk haul it across the Savannah back to the cave. Does Guk get out his paints and paintbrush? Not at first. He would use his finger or toe to draw an indented diagram or map in the sand, pointing directly to the big meat. After this habit became ... ingrained ... Guk might accidentally run his toe onto a hard surface, where the dirt would leave a trail. Aha! What happens if I take a stick, dip it into the dirt, and use it to draw the map on the cliffside? And what happens if I spit on the stick first to make the dirt hold together? Much easier to see than the scratching in the dirt, and less likely to get erased when the Sabertooth Tiger stalks the Savannah.

Scratching in clay was even more permanent. Hmm. What happens if I snap off a stick to make a sharp linear edge, and push it into the clay instead of scratching? I can use this stick to make a regular and reliable set of notches to count how many times I helped you haul big meat, so I can show you how many times you need to help me haul big meat. Hmm again. What happens if you give me a fish for each notch instead of helping me? That's just as good. I like fish. Presto. Economics and money.

After the single-stick puncher felt boring and slow, what came next? A stamp or seal. A bundle of sticks oriented properly to make the symbols for each number or sound. Then at some point the bundle turned into a baked 'positive' clay that would reliably punch the entire symbol.

Presto. Typewriter. Printing.

Aside from my fanciful stories, the basic sequence is definite. For proper symbolic writing, cuneiform engraving came before pen and ink. Numbers came before phonemes. Commerce came before literature.

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 3:45 AM